Anyone know what's happening with FSNav for FSX?

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi,

Looks like FSNavigator site is all but closed down with just a download link for 4.7 and link to Simmarket. All news items have been removed. I wonder if this means they've given up further development or are about to re-launch themselves with FSNav 5 for FSX ?

Reegards

John

[DaveG]

As far as I know, FSNav is no more :-(

[DaveB]

Oh dear.. if that's the case, I've wasted good money on FSX (which is probably the case anyway)

A new version was supposed to be in development with a projected release date of last summer. However.. we're all aware of how M$ kept adjusting the goal posts, first with SP1 and again with SP2 so perhaps they really did give up. There were RL issues too as I understand it :-(

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Tweek]

I don't suppose this will serve a similar purpose?

http://www.fsmap.net/default.asp

[petermcleland]

A new version was supposed to be in development with a projected release date of last summer. However.. we're all aware of how M$ kept adjusting the goal posts, first with SP1 and again with SP2 so perhaps they really did give up. There were RL issues too as I understand it :-(

Dave,

There is no "they"...Helge is a "one man band". I think there were probably too many issues and I'm sure that the Aces trampling all over his F9 key was a very unkind cut, but so much else got trampled on as well. In fact, now they they are plainly stating that backwards compatability will not be present in future issues of Flight Simulator, I have resolved to remain permanently with FS9 and never again purchase a new issue. I'm very fond of FSNav and use it constantly. I'm still buying high quality scenery for FS9 and will continue to do so as long as it is available and my version of FS9 is just gorgeous and I love using it. I will probably continue to upgrade my machine at approx. three year intervals and by the time FS12 is up and about and doing 7 to 9 frames per second, my FS9 will be doing about 60 fps with full weather and traffic

[Quixoticish]

I wish that were true Peter, however there will reach a point where the game engine will physically begin to show signs of wear and tear and it will be severely limited in the amount of polygons it can push around. No matter how much horsepower you throw at something once a game engine becomes antiquated and isn't updated it'll reach a point where it will just refuse to have any more detail added to it. I have to say that I do feel in some instances that FS9 is slowly starting to feel that way already, there are certain circumstances when you are flying in heavy clouds, surrounding by lots of AI and over extremely detailed scenery that things begin to clunk and grind a little... To be completely honest I hope FSXI doesn't have any backwards compatibility. I know it's a harsh especially for developers but as a realist it's easy to understand that you can only continue optimising the same thing so much and you'll reach a point where everything needs to be re-built from the ground up and by loosing that backwards compatibility we may (putting a lot of faith in ACES I know) end up with a stunning sim that runs very well on a wide range of systems and is packed with all of the latest bells and whistles. Who knows... they may even improve the SDK to make things easier for developers however it will take that breakaway moment when a sim is completely new and throws away everything that has come before until we really know where the future of our hobby is heading. It will be a real make or break moment for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it is a case of "when" rather than "if" I think.

[DaveB]

Hi Peter/Chris

Rgr both ;-)

For my part.. I'm still more than happy with FS9 and also continue to buy quality scenery for it. Lee, my assistant manager, recently upgraded his system to an Intel DualCore 3gig and I was quite amazed to see Aerosoft's London Airport 2008 running CalClassic AI at 100% slow to a meagre 45fps at one point :o :o :o That's around 30fps quicker than my XP3200 at full-chat with his at the lowest ebb and boy.. does it look good ;-)

I've had a look at FSMap and don't like it much. Looks like a revamp of another prog I had years ago with a very similar name. I'll stick with what I know and be happy ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Quixoticish]

With regards to FSNav I've tried almost every available FSX alternative and as far as I'm concerned there are none at the moment, it's a case of sticking to the in flight GPS. All of them are either programs that run outside FS (no use to me) or ones that you add to a panel and they work as a pop-up, but none seem to have the ease of use that FSNav had. I'm not interesting in the flight planner either, I just want a good moving map that displays all of the information I need to know about airports and navaids in relation to my location with a simple click or mouseover that is at hand in such a way that doesn't require either panel modding or tabbing out of FS.

[petermcleland]

Lee, my assistant manager, recently upgraded his system to an Intel DualCore 3gig and I was quite amazed to see Aerosoft's London Airport 2008 running CalClassic AI at 100% slow to a meagre 45fps at one point :o :o :o That's around 30fps quicker than my XP3200 at full-chat with his at the lowest ebb and boy.. does it look good ;-)

That exactly makes my point Dave...I too can run Aerosoft's Heathrow with 100% traffic and most of the time I can get double figures on the frame rates...I would like 25 to 30 fps and I know I could get them with an upgrade to the system you have mentioned. However, I'm going to bypass that upgrade and wait for the next machinery step up before rebuilding my computer. I'm confident that when I do that, my Aerosoft Heathrow will scream along whereas people making the same machinery upgrade as me, just to run FS11 or FS12 will just get into double figures running their crappy default Heathrow

[Chris Trott]

Peter, I wouldn't take that step just yet. With a true 100% rebuild of the FS Series, the need for the fairly substantial power step-up with every version should be mitigated quite substantially as much of the problem lies within the Flight Dynamics engine which has not been able to be upgraded since it was introduced in FS5. They've tried to get rid of the AIR file which is the "black magic" (their words) behind how FS works like it does, but because the people who programmed it are long gone and there was no real documentation on how it all worked left, they were stuck with it to maintain backward compatibility and it's severely restricted where they can go forward with it. Because of that, they're forced to make compromises in the visual arena as well, and so not everything is as streamlined as it could be. With a full rebuild to a new system, they can remove the tables, pull all the graphics off the CPU finally, and you'll finally be able to see some real progress in making it more logical and (hopefully) easier to program Flight Dynamics to a high fidelity without having to use so much "black magic" to get there. It will become more of an issue of plugging in the proper numbers and the flight dynamics engine will figure everything else out, much like how it's done in X-Plane.